grown people of
both sexes came out and shook hands with the party.

"This is Mary's house," said Hester to Denison, pointing out the
largest; "let us go there at once. Ah, see, there she is at the door
waiting for us."

"Come, come inside," cried the old woman in a firm yet pleasant voice,
and Denison, looking to the right, saw that "Mary," in spite of her
years and blindness, was still robust and active-looking. She was
dressed in a blue print gown and blouse, and her grey hair was neatly
dressed in the island fashion. In her smooth, brown right hand she
grasped the handle of a polished walking-stick, her left arm she held
across her bosom--the hand was missing from the wrist.

"How do you do, sir?" she said in clear English, as, giving her stick to
Kate Randle, she held out her hand to the supercargo. "I am so glad
that you have come to see me. You are Mr. Denison, I know. Is Captain
Packenham quite well? Come, Kitty, see to your friend. There, that cane
lounge is the most comfortable. Harry, please shoot a couple of chickens
at once, and then tell my people to get some taro, and make an oven."

"Oh, that is just like you, Mary," said Kate, laughing, "before we have
spoken three words to you you begin cooking things for us."

The old woman turned her sunburnt face towards the girl and shook her
stick warningly, and said in the native tongue--

"Leave me to rule in mine own house, saucy," and then Denison had an
effort to restrain his gravity as Mary, unaware that he had a very fair
knowledge of the dialect in which she spoke, asked the two girls if
either of them had thought of him as a husband. Kate put her hand over
Mary's mouth and whispered to her to cease. She drew the girl to her and
hugged her.

Whilst the meal was being prepared Denison was studying the house and
its contents. Exteriorly the place bore no difference to the usual
native house, but within it was plainly but yet comfortably furnished
in European fashion, and the tables, chairs, and sideboard had evidently
been a portion of a ship's cabin fittings. From the sitting-room--the
floor of which was covered by white China matting--he could see a
bedroom opposite, a bed with snowy white mosquito curtains, and two
mahogany chairs draped with old-fashioned antimacassars. The sight of
these simple furnishings first made him smile, then sigh--he had not
seen such things since he had left his own home nearly six years before.
Hung upon the walls of